Robert Moog, creator of the synthesiser born

Rock Down To Electronic Avenue

For purveyors of a certain brand of music, there is a single syllable word that starts their heart fluttering and gets their palms nice and clammy. And that word is Moog. Born on this day in 1934, Robert Moog was the creator of the iconic synthesiser that shared his name and had a direct influence on psychedelic, prog and dance music. And made lots of lovely “BWWOOOOOOOOOO!’ type sounds.

Starting out with theremins in the 1950’s, Moog began to develop electronic devices that could replicate the sounds of different instruments and produced their own unique noises. After a collection of Moog synthesiser based classical tunes, Hooked on Bach, was a big hit in 1969, the synth reached pubic consciousness, after already being adopted by musicians as diverse as The Beatles, Sun Ra, Giorgio Moroder and Hot Butter whose Moog derived hit ‘Popcorn’ has been driving people completely insane since its release in 1972. And even though Robert himself went to the great studio in the sky in 2005, the company he created still releases innovative synths and keyboards to this day.